IE 9 - Falsify HTML User Agent

[Michael Morris]

I'm rapidly getting sick of IE 9 choking on "fixes" that sites have put in to browser sniff for earlier IE versions. Most browsers have a way for the savvy user to falsify the user agent string and thus defeat this non-sense. I can't seem to find it for IE 9. Any one figured it out?

[felgall]

I'm rapidly getting sick of IE 9 choking on "fixes" that sites have put in to browser sniff for earlier IE versions. Most browsers have a way for the savvy user to falsify the user agent string and thus defeat this non-sense. I can't seem to find it for IE 9. Any one figured it out?

Can't you edit it in the registry the same as you can for all earlier versions of IE?

[Michael Morris]

Can't you edit it in the registry the same as you can for all earlier versions of IE?

I may be a programmer, but I'm more than a little gun shy on doing registry edits since they can lock the system up (or at least they can on Win XP) when misdone.

Related note - what should I change the agent string to I wonder?

[Raffles]

Change it to whatever it was for IE8 or 7. You can easily find that on google.

As for changing this in the registry, save a backup of the key you're editing. It's not exactly critical to the OS, so I very much doubt you'd do any damage.

It's the key people can edit so they can add "provided by [Institution Name]" after the "page title - Microsoft Windows Explorer" bit in the title bar.

[felgall]

I'd be tempted to change it to match the latest Firefox useragent since IE9 should be closer to that browser in what it supports than it is to any prior IE version.

[Michael Morris]

Change it to whatever it was for IE8 or 7. You can easily find that on google.

That would be more or less pointless. I'm trying to avoid IE filters while IE 9 is in compliant rendering mode. If I want to change the user agent string to IE 8 I can simply put the browser in IE 8 emulation mode (Or IE 7, 6 or even 5).

The problem is sites filtering IE with the expectation that it cannot render content and sending "corrections" for IE 8 or earlier. I don't want to render those - I want to render the actual content for testing purposes.

Then again, it may be pointless to switch the UA string anyway - anything they put in <!--IF IE --> would be picked up anyway.

[AlexDawson]

I say start sending emails to all the websites you find that are discriminating against the browser explaining to them that their poorly produced script (and or website) is turning away potential visitors and customers because their telling IE9 users to get lost. It only took me 5 minutes to ensure my site didn't break in IE9, and that was to just alter a conditional comment so it said IF LT IE 9 rather than IF IE. The sooner they know, the quicker they can fix it!

[Michael Morris]

Well the largest offender is You Tube - the playlist javascript is borked (then again, it ironically isn't working in chrome well either last I checked - just works in Firefox and IE 8 or less).

I'll give it a month before shooting out the emails. In the meanwhile I have found myself taking huge advantage of the pin to taskbar feature. I've pinned Google Mail, My company's local Mantis page, Prototypejs.org and sitepoint to the bar.

Microsoft seriously needs to consider stealing OS X's stacks feature.

[AlexDawson]

Doesn't surprise me, Google are well known for having poorly maintained site source code that doesn't work right (ask Felgall, he'll tell you ALL about it)